The New Orleans Saints will be squaring off with rookie sensation Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars this weekend. The Saints stumbled in their first preseason affair, losing to the Baltimore Ravens after turning the football over six times! Meanwhile, the Jaguars were only able to muster 85 yards of total offense in the first half of their loss to the Cleveland Browns. You can expect each of these organizations to come out with a little more fire than what we were able to see last weekend.
The Saints are likely to get a better look at both Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston in this contest. Hill completed 8 of 12 pass attempts for 81 yards with an ugly interception on top. Winston stepped in afterwards and completed 7 of 12 attempts for 96 yards, a touchdown and an interception of his own. The future of the Saints franchise seems to hang in the balance of these two quarterbacks, so evaluating them should be the team’s top priority heading into this game. As for their defense, they shouldn’t worry too much. Their defensive line was outstanding, particularly Marcus Davenport and David Onyemata putting together fantastic performances. Even their rookie cornerback Paulson Adebo made a few incredible plays despite being tested by opposing quarterbacks the entire night.
I would imagine that we aren’t going to be seeing the starters for more than a couple drives in this matchup. Lawrence will probably get a little more action than he did in the first game but there is simply no way he lasts past the first quarter of action. The same goes for Alvin Kamara and Cameron Jordan, two cornerstones of the Saints roster. I believe that the Jaguars are going to give them problems offensively if their starters remain in the game longer than anticipated. The Saints defense is pretty strong overall, but Lawrence brings a new excitement to the city of Jacksonville that we haven’t seen in a while. However, Jacksonville doesn’t have much depth and given how this is a preseason matchup it may not go too well for them. Gardner Minshew didn’t perform well against the Browns despite getting in a lot of work and their defense struggled to slow down their opponents. New Orleans has to get that turnover issue cleaned up, but they should be able to win this contest.
I have also been paying close attention to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they line up to play the Tennessee Titans this weekend. Their backups played the majority of the game and didn’t look too good. They should have a chance to redeem themselves here as their head coach, Bruce Arians, has stated that there is a good shot we don’t see any of their starters against the Titans. I have heard the same thing from the Titans side, so this matchup won’t be featuring Tom Brady, Julio Jones, Derrick Henry and Mike Evans like you could expect. This will be more of a test to see how their depth is shaping out ahead of the regular season.